Canada Bill Jones (1837-1880)

Canada Bill Jones was the working nickname of William Jones, a noted confidence artist, riverboat gambler and card sharp.

Born in a Romnichal tent in Yorkshire, Jones learned the classic scams young. At twenty, he migrated to Canada in search of fresh marks. He honed his three card monte travelling Canada as a thrower with Dick Cady. When Jones wanted bigger game, he left Cady and headed south to the Mississippi riverboats. There he joined up with George Devol, Holly Chappell and Tom Brown, working the boats. When the foursome broke up, Devol and Jones kept at it until the American Civil War. They fell out when Jones caught Devol trying to cheat him.

After the war, Dutch Charlie was Jones' next partner, this time in Kansas City. When they won $200,000 there, they decided to move on to working the Omaha, Nebraska to Kansas City trains. When the Union Pacific Railway management started clamping down on three-card-monte players, he wrote the general superintendent of the railway, offering $10,000 a year to secure an exclusive franchise, but was rebuffed.

Jones moved on to Chicago, in 1874 teaming up with Jimmy Porter and "Colonel" Charlie Starr. There he opened and worked four gambling joints, all crooked.

He won and lost $150,000 in a year, consistently falling for short card cons. Moving on to Cleveland with Porter, he continued to lose to professionals there as fast as he won from his marks. He moved on in 1877, dying a pauper in the Charity Hospital at Reading, Pennsylvania. The mayor was reimbursed for the funeral by the gamblers of Chicago.

It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.